Netty SPDY SETTINGS frame count materializes unbounded settings map

Summary

Netty's SPDY SETTINGS decoder accepts a peer-declared SETTINGS entry count up to the 24-bit frame-length limit and materializes every unique setting ID in DefaultSpdySettingsFrame without an implementation-level count cap. A remote SPDY/3.1 peer can send one syntactically valid roughly 2 MiB SETTINGS frame that creates 262144 map entries, amplifying network input into heap growth and ordered-map insertion work.

Details

Inbound SPDY bytes enter SpdyFrameCodec.decode() and are passed directly to the frame decoder. The decoder reads the peer-controlled flags and 24-bit frame length from the common header, then accepts SETTINGS frames with only length >= 4. For SETTINGS payloads, it reads the peer-controlled numSettings field and validates only that the remaining payload is divisible into 8-byte entries and exactly matches that count. Each accepted entry then supplies an attacker-controlled 24-bit ID and value, and the normal delegate path forwards it into spdySettingsFrame.setValue(). The sink is DefaultSpdySettingsFrame: it backs settings with a TreeMap, checks only that IDs fit the SPDY 24-bit maximum, and inserts a new Setting for each previously unseen ID. There is no count budget between the wire-format count validation and the TreeMap insertion site.

PoC

poc.zip

run with

bash ./poc/run.sh

expected output:

NETTY_SPDY_SETTINGS_COUNT_MAP_TRIGGERED settings_count=262144 wire_bytes=2097164 approx_heap_delta=17692272 first_value=1 last_value=262144

The NETTY_SPDY_SETTINGS_COUNT_MAP_TRIGGERED line means the harness decoded the crafted SETTINGS frame and observed all 262144 peer-selected IDs in the resulting settings map. The wire_bytes=2097164, first_value=1, and last_value=262144 fields distinguish this from a setup failure: they show the exact oversized frame was accepted and fully materialized.

Impact

remote unauthenticated network peer that can speak SPDY/3.1 to a Netty pipeline containing SpdyFrameCodec can trigger resource-exhaustion denial of service. The required guards are satisfied by a complete valid SETTINGS frame using the expected SPDY version, a length of 4 + numSettings * 8, and IDs within the accepted 24-bit range; the verified PoC uses numSettings=262144 and wire_bytes=2097164. On that input, Netty materializes 262144 attacker-controlled entries in a TreeMap-backed DefaultSpdySettingsFrame, with local runs observing about 17-18 MiB of heap growth per decoded frame plus CPU work for ordered-map insertion.